Good game, but it could have been great

[Digus]

Got the game a while back and played it until the middle of chapter 3. I stopped playing because it felt too repetitive and wanted to play something else.
Recently I started to play it again and managed to complete chapter 5 and started over from chapter 1, playing on the highest difficulty to evolve and unlock new characters. I'm on the final section of chapter 2 and it's again feeling repetitive.

So here is my take on what is good and what does not work as intended.

The pixel art and music are great. The game really gives that Indiana Jones vibe. Those are the most positive things about the game by far.

For me the worst problem is that the chapters lack any meaningful difference between them. If you show me your game screen I couldn't tell which chapter you are playing.The maps are different, but they are all generic desert settings. When you enter a "dot" it makes no difference if the map shows you next to a river, a canyon, a village, it's always some random stuff. It can be an open desert, a village, a camp, a bucker, some ruins... Every chapter seems to use the same tactical maps.
Take most games with chapters, they are always different and are unique in some way.In pathway chapters here are just a way to scale difficulty. Even if some chapters focus on nazi enemies, others on cultists/zombies, it's not enough to have any distinction between them. Just some flavor image and text with narration at the beginning and end of the section are not enough.

The combat is simple and I like it that way. You can't have the complexity of XCOM combat if you are supposed to play dozens of combat in a chapter. But even being simple, it lacks some depth. Like some other people pointed out. Some of the abilities are useless or too situational.
The best strategy is to kill any enemy close enough to you so it could flank you next turn.
There are some different strategies to accomplish that, and that is why combat is fun. But some balance on some abilities would be nice.The amount of different enemies also does not help. At the end of chapter 2 or begin of chapter 3 you have already seen everything the game has to offer. Another group of enemies would have helped a little. Like bandits, rebels,...
The weapon variety is nice too. They all seem unique and change the game depending on which configuration you have. But with that comes another problem, the characters.

The characters have nice graphic design and different backstories, but that is it. They share the same pool of weapons, the same abilities, same specialization. No one has some unique gameplay associated with them.
Specializations are redundant, they serve the same purpose. Avoid combat and give you rewards. It does not matter if you are a brute or an engineer, just wait for an option that uses it.
The characters have no story evolution during the chapters. The only difference is when finding characters randomly, some will be excavating, others will be captured by nazies and others will be arrested in a village. That seems to have something to do with their personality, but that is it.

The next problem with the game is the lack of event variety. There sure is a lot of flavor text. But in the end all we have is: combat, shop, trade, rest, reward/penalty, nothing.There seem to be some story events, but that does not work well without some kind of story log. It's impossible to remember these events and make connections with so much random stuff you get. After a while you are just skipping textes after seeing so much similar stuff.

The only thing I'm still looking forward to, besides getting a few extra achievements for the sake of getting them, is the hardcore mode. But even so, I don't see myself playing everything again for a little more challenge any time soon.

I think this game is a mix of FTL and Renowned Explorers: International Society, but I am sure it could have absorbed more from both games.
FTL has only one "chapter", but you are expected to fail a lot and the reliability comes from you getting better until you finish it. After you finish it, the ships you unlock play so differently that you might want to try different ones.
Renowned Explorers on the other hand has done the difference in "chapters" perfectly. Each adventure is unique visually and with some gameplay differences. Each favoring some play style that is informed to the player, so it can prepare for it. All characters have backstories and interactions between them that are shown on random events during the adventures. I really miss that on Pathway. That game also has action between adventures with shops, technology tree and other stuff that pathway lacks. The only thing we have in the pathway is the car upgrade. It didn't need to be complex, but it could sure have some more to it. Capping the money at 9999 almost makes no difference since there is so little you can do with it.

I sure could talk more, but I think that is enoughI'm only writing this because I liked the game and think it had a lot of potential, it could have been a great game, but ended up just being good and niche.

I hope that the developers can one day work on Pathway 2/remake and expand the game to a whole other level.